Comment

The field of Psychology has discovered many remarkable aspects of human behaviour, some of which are to some degree 'hard wired', some of which are to some degree as a result of culture/nurture, some of which are the result of social reinforcement or identification.

People react and consider others differently due to all kinds of seemingly trivial variables, such as height, age, sex, attractiveness, visually obvious health defects, style of dress, colour of clothes, meeting people for the first time in 'scary' situations, lighting etc etc. These can have all sorts of effects, including perceived trustworthiness.

The truth value of these findings no more mean that every broad-faced male is untrustworthy and should be treated as such as the truth that we are primates means we need to sit in trees and fling poop about.

Knowing about these sorts of biases is important so that we are not unduly influenced by them. Knowing that people with rounder faces are perceived to be more trustworthy and (in the past at least) are statistically more likely to be found not guilty in court is something that is important and we (or at least the justice system!) should know.

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